With so many software management options available for fitness professionals and personal trainers to choose from, it’s important to have an objective overview of these software packages.

Many packages also offer a mobile app for personal trainers and clients to use. Virtuagym is one that promises to be an all-in-one option, but how does it stack up with the all-in-one business management software offered by Exercise.com?

If you’re ready to grow your business, schedule a demo with the Team at Exercise.com.

Virtuagym Company Overview

Virtuagym touts itself as a one-stop-shop for health clubs and fitness professionals. Its cloud-based software has grown into an all-in-one solution in the fitness industry with options for client coaching, membership management and billing, scheduling and more.

Virtuagym launched in 2008, has over seven million users worldwide, serves over 4,000 health clubs and fitness professionals.

There are over 200 employees at Virtuagym and the company is based in the Netherlands. Virtuagym is a growing company and expanded its team in early 2018. Seedtable listed Virtuagym as one of the top 100 Startups in Amsterdam.

While Virtuagym’s cloud-based software is impressive, it does leave small business owners feeling forgotten with costly services and hard-to-break contract terms:

“As a personal trainer of a small business it has proved more than I need and far too expensive given our exchange rates.” – Tracy Y., Capterra

Virtuagym Features vs Exercise.com

Virtuagym includes features such as basic customizations, appointment scheduling, automated billing, workout plans, and metrics to track progress.

While it does offer an impressive array of features, Virtuagym does not provide a list of benefits that are outside of Exercise.com’s feature offerings, including:

– Fitness Business Management (FBM)

Virtuagym allows health clubs to post their class schedule on their website or mobile app so clients can book and manage their classes, but full customization is lacking. I bet you’d rather be spending your time working on growing your business. That’s why we’ve developed our All-in-One Fitness Business Management (FBM) software.

– Calendars and Booking

How many more clients could you onboard, engage, and retain if you had an easy to use software to schedule and book clients? Plus what if that software was built into the same platform you use to build workouts, sell plans, and deliver assessments?

No more learning a dozen different software to run your business.

No more teaching a bunch of different systems to your staff.

No more confusion and fractured experiences for your clients.

It’s the same unified experience for your staff and clients from web to apps.

FBM will empower you to track visits, book classes and sessions, engage your clients with recurring appointment reminders via email and text, and provide calendar integration with google and apple for easy management. With FBM’s calendar, you can also sort by:

Trainer

Location

Service

Recurring

Time

Availability

– Accepting Payments Securely and Easily

with a Fitness Business Management (FBM) software where you can access all of your payment tools in the same custom-branded web and mobile apps, so that professionals like you could spend less time tracking down failed charges, taking payments, and managing payment details and have more time for growing your business.

FBM makes it easy to set up packages for your training where clients can pay a one-time or recurring price with cash, check, or credit card. Plus accept direct deposits and allow online purchasing of packages — all in one easy to use software.

And you’ll have sales and business reports for all your clients, classes, and workout packages to make managing your business easy.

– Increase Business Efficiency & Revenue

Never worry about sales, staff, clients, or data logged falling between the cracks with reporting at your fingertips in your custom web and mobile apps. Managing a staff of any size is time-consuming but FBM saves you time with assignable staff roles, so you can put staff management on autopilot.

Plus all your reports can be run in a single software. No more safaris for which software has which reports. Exercise.com’s Fitness Business Management (FBM) software makes reports easy — sales, business, appointments, class, and payroll reports all in one place. Plus you can also sort reports by:

These reports empower you to have your finger on the pulse of your business and if you’re bringing on new trainers you’ll know how much to pay staff based on commissions. For your business’ marketing, automate your efforts by connecting to MailChimp, ConstantContact, ConvertKit, Zapier, Google Analytics, & Facebook Pixel

Are you catching the pattern?

Implement systems that save you time

Have all your management tools in one software

Manage your business from anywhere

Now you might be able to do these things on your own, but that’s the hard way. Building software is expensive and can take years.

– Custom-Branded Web & Smartphone Apps

The Virtuagym app is available for free through iOS and Android devices. The app features hundreds of exercises with an animated trainer demonstrating those exercises and all of this is built into the app. You can also save the workout for future use.

The free app includes access to group challenges, a few workout plans, and integration with certain health devices, fitness wearables, or the Apple Health app. The pro version has additional features, such as additional workout plans. The pro version costs $6.99 for a four-week subscription or $33.99 for a one-year subscription.

Health club members can also view available classes through their club’s schedule, book classes through the mobile app, track attendance, and receive reminders and push notifications.

Here’s where Exercise.com has the advantage, because it truly is an all-in-one, fully-customizable software.

Imagine you are a personal trainer: you have the ability to design custom workouts, deliver those workouts through the mobile app, and help your clients with their nutrition to meet their fitness or weight loss goals. Plus, the mobile app is fully customizable to match your branding, logos, and colors:

Members, clients, and trainers have 24/7 on-the-go access to the mobile app with Exercise.com. Scheduling workouts, viewing the exercise library, communication, and more are readily available anytime, anywhere.

– Workout Creation and Delivery

Personal trainers can use Virtuagym software or app with their clients. There is an animated trainer built into the mobile app with the exercise library. Trainers can design workout plans, share those plans, and use the Food app to review their client’s food intake. Virtuagym also includes workout plans and an exercise library.

Despite an array of features, users express frustration in how long it takes to build a workout for their clients:

“Uploading custom workouts and video is very inconvenient and requires way too many steps. Overall dissatisfied and I wish I chose a different company.” – Michael R., Capterra

“Faulty Workout Editor and the other glitches I experienced. I wish I could add video to these reviews to show what the workout editor was doing since it’s hard to explain, but basically, it was not working as it should at all. Even customer service and my account manager, who conveniently disappeared when I asked for my money back, admitted that the redirects that were happening within the editor made no sense.” – Taylor B., Capterra

Exercise.com also has a robust exercise library available, along with options to create new exercises to add to the library. The exercise library includes numerous video demos, lists the muscles worked, the difficulty level, and helpful instructions.

Unlike Virtuagym, with Exercise.com, building a workout is straightforward, simple, and does not require a large array of steps.

Personal trainers can create workout plans, save those plans, and assign those to one or more clients. Trainers can also add notes, upload files, or add other resources to workout plans. There are also automation options to send workouts automatically to clients.

One great feature of Exercise.com is that your clients can be face-to-face clients or virtual clients. With this software, you can sell online training packages or membership and then engage with those clients from anywhere. Those clients can have the flexibility of doing their workout at a gym, home, or an office using the mobile app.

Exercise enthusiasts can view their customized workouts, log workouts, watch the video demos in the exercise library, and give feedback to their personal trainer via the mobile app.

Exercise.com makes my life easier by providing an all-in-one solution and the opportunity to help those who otherwise would never have access to my programming! – Tony Gentilcore, Founder, Core Online

– E-Commerce/Point of Sale

The Virtuagym website lists the availability of point of sale features, which they call a webshop. The webshop allows integration with health club websites, automates invoices, saves client information, and has an easy signup process. Health club managers can personalize the webshop with their logo and club information.

Exercise.com has a number of e-commerce options included with our software. The options include:

Sell memberships or training packages

Sell individual or custom workout plans (sport-specific or goal-specific) for use online, at home, or in the gym

Sell individual training options to online customers or gym members

Run workout challenges to motivate and encourage clients while increasing revenue

Sell recurring workout plans, such as weekly workouts or assessments

For trainers or professionals who engage with their clients via social media, the e-commerce options included with Exercise.com are a huge benefit. The revenue generation and brand loyalty opportunities are endless.

– Performance Health Assessments

Virtuagym offers metrics for the client or for individual tracking purposes. The metrics available in the free version include weight, waist circumference, estimated percent body fat, and Body Mass Index (BMI). You have the ability to add a starting value, update with your progress, and see a visual graph of your progress.

When comparing performance health assessment features, Exercise.com does have more robust performance health assessment options such as tracking measurement data, injuries, and custom assessment notes. Some of the measurements and assessments include weight, height, activity level, distance runs, power output, range of motion measurements, and others.

You are also able to track assessments using graphs and charts. Let’s say your personal trainer has set you up with a plan to help improve your 5K and 10K paces. You are able to complete a baseline assessment, like a 12-minute run for distance or a one-mile run, and keep that in your file. The next time you complete that assessment, maybe after three months, you are able to compare to your baseline.

Grow and manage your fitness business better with Exercise.com

– Automation

Virtuagym has options for automatic billing/debits for health clubs. Virtuagym also offers software integration with many devices.

Exercise.com has a number of automation options within its software. Trainers are able to automate workouts for their clients so if the client wants to receive their workouts twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that can be set up. This frees up time for the trainer and keeps their clients motivated and engaged.

The software also allows for automated payments, which keeps members updated on payments and saves time for staff who would normally handle this task.

Staff or trainers can communicate easily with clients and members by using automated emails to members or clients, automated texting for marketing or reminders, and app push notifications and reminders.

Exercise.com has endless integrations and continues to add more regularly. Power your business by connecting to Zapier, Stripe, YouTube, Vimeo, MailChimp, ConvertKit, ConstantContact, Refersion, Intercom, and more.

Kellie Davis, owner of FitThrive talks about the endless integrations available with her custom-built software from Exercise.com:

“Exercise.com has allowed a lot of flexibility with integration, so I can better connect with my customers. They developed a way to integrate with my CMR so I can send email sequences after purchasing, and they also created an upsell option on the sales page that offers exclusive products to customers.”

Virtuagym Pricing

You must provide an email address and basic information about your company to receive a free demo and pricing details. Pricing details are not readily available on the Virtuagym website, although some online information lists a $29.00 and up monthly cost.

One user commented that the pricing is expensive for smaller studios. Online reviews from GetApp rate the value for money a 3.6/5.

Top Direct Competitors

The biggest competitors to Virtuagym are ZenPlanner, Vagaro, Exercise.com, and Mindbody. Other direct competitors include WellnessLiving, GloFox, RhinoFit, ClubExpress, Pike13, and PushPress.

The Bottom Line: Pros and Cons

Virtuagym offers users a wide range of features and is a solid overall product. However, Exercise.com wins out with a larger feature list and more robust workout creation options, nutrition tracker, and performance health assessment software.

– Virtuagym Cons

There are some negative reviews of Virtuagym, mostly around value for money, customer service, difficult cancellation process, and ease of use. Many users dislike that Virtuagym does not offer a free trial and the contract length appears to be 12 months.

“If they provided a good service that people wanted to continue to use, they would not need a 12-month contract. They have great, slick, fast talking, smooth sales people, and the website is great and it all sounds so good. They do not offer a free trial and the only way was to sign up.”

There were some negative comments about how most of the fitness animations use a male and that an improvement could be made to include more female models in the exercise library. There were also comments about not being able to delete members that are no longer active, only an option to disable them.

In terms of customer support, Exercise.com includes phone support, email support, a knowledge base, and chat support to its users; options that Virtuagym lacks to fully deliver on.

– Exercise.com Pros

Exercise.com’s all-in-one fitness business management software is fully customizable, easy to use, and comes with a world-class development team that creates applications for you based on your company’s wants and needs. With fewer glitches, fewer steps, and fewer hurdles to jump, we’ve ensured that Exercise.com provides a positive user experience and that customizations are tailored to a company’s unique revenue goals.

Another Exercise.com pro is that we offer trainers the ability to see what their clients’ caloric intake is on a day-to-day basis. This helps improve accountability and connects a member’s personal nutrition to their level of physical activity. Trainers can make suggestions, upload meal plans, or give clients ideas for improvement or options to fuel for workouts.

The nutrition tracker also allows clients and trainers to distinguish between training day calories and macronutrient goals and rest day macronutrient and calorie goals, which is a unique feature of Exercise.com:

Hopefully, you see the benefit of not waiting to have a system and software in place that allows you to manage and grow your business for years to come.

What features are most important for your business?

If you’re ready to grow and manage your business with a software that can be customized to your business, book a demo with Exercise.com.